OotS 634

[WalterKovacs]

The emphasis is on D&D relying on moral absolutes. Evil is Evil. You're trying to apply moral relativism ("it did not do anything") to inherently Evil creature (in other words, you're forgetting about "... yet" and "this is a big black dragon").
It also does not help your case that said black dragon would have tried OOTS dudes and dudettes to have for lunch anyway.

Please, do note that dragon parent, besides being a parent (which makes us biased toward it) is also evil black dragon. By sparing life of young adult, they would have been risking existence of another creature with similar mindset: "skinning alive adults and eating children is fine" (this is a quick recap of words of wronged dragon parent, and no, Evil beings need no justifications to do such things anyway).

You feel bad about OOTS team killing the young dragon because the dragon parent made a convincing case appealing to your humanity. Where you err, however, is that you attempt to judge dragon parent using your own, humane, viewpoint.

Regards,
Ruemere

One note ... V is not good. Thus, it is perfectly possible for V to commit evil acts. Heck, Belkar is admitedly evil. The OOTS party aren't inherently good. They exist in a world where they had a paladin as one of their antogonists, showing the evil Belkar to be "better" than the lawful good Miko.

V's attitude towards killing the black dragon was exactly the same attitude he had towards killing Kubota. It's in my way, let's do this as quickly as possible, damn the consequences. V could hardly be concerned about the allignment of those he kills.

It isn't so much that the dragon isn't evil (the extent to which the black dragon is willing to go for revenge is the way an evil creature would approach revenge. Heck, revenge instead of justice is an evil idea). The dragon is obviously evil. However V is good only in as much as, being a member of the Order, his enemies are traditionally evil, and he's assisting them in a "big picture" good duty of keeping the universe from being destroyed. However V is just as likely as Belkar to destroy anything in his path regardless of allignment, it's just that Belkar revels in the destruction, while V is just looking for XP, and annoyed by the obstacles in his way. Disintegration, versus other ways to kill things, prevents the chance of most raise spells. It was, in part, because of using disintegration that V got on the black dragon's radar. Killing the dragon would have been fine. Killing the dragon, and making it nigh-impossible to be raised encounraged the parent to react with an even more extreme revenge.

 

[jeffh]

The emphasis is on D&D relying on moral absolutes. Evil is Evil. You're trying to apply moral relativism ("it did not do anything") to inherently Evil creature (in other words, you're forgetting about "... yet" and "this is a big black dragon").

While you make a decent case that the long-term consequences of letting either dragon live would be bad (not an airtight one, since you assume a great deal that is not in evidence, but a decent on), what you object to here is not moral relativism. It is perfectly compatible with taking any number of different absolutist moral stances, and could indeed be the expression of one. I'm very puzzled by this assertion - I don't think "relativism" means what you think it means.

Indeed, the only place where I've seen moral relativism show up in this discussion is later in your own post:

Where you err, however, is that you attempt to judge dragon parent using your own, humane, viewpoint.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Personally, I would have asked if the time the three fiends control his soul has to be "used up" in one go... or if they can parcel it out in minor increments.

If they each can control him for, say, sixty one-minute increments during the remainder of his lifespan, this could be very inconvenient.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Personally, I would have asked if the time the three fiends control his soul has to be "used up" in one go... or if they can parcel it out in minor increments.

If they each can control him for, say, sixty one-minute increments during the remainder of his lifespan, this could be very inconvenient.

I would guess that, simply for dramatic purposes, each of them will have one chance to posess V. Basically, so that, just like everyone was eagerly waiting for when the prophecy would be fufilled, they can now wait for when the "right moment" for one fo the fiends to pop up would be.

 

[ruemere]

One note ... V is not good.[...].

Agreed. I'm just a bit puzzled with people being sympathetic toward black dragon parent on the grounds of it losing a child, while the said dragon parent is about to do horrible stuff to another parent. Two wrongs make a right only for someone lacking empathy, and so any sympathy for the dragon is out of place.

Indeed, the only place where I've seen moral relativism show up in this discussion is later in your own post:

You're missing my point. Issue of passing judgement on dragon is pretty separate from inner game mechanics. The former takes place in a real word (i.e. a reader is making a judgement), the latter is a consequence of artificial alignment mechanic.

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Phaezen]

As a side note, I am saving this current story arc with V in my Ratbastard DM file under the heading how to run a temptation

Phaezen